Tonight the phony debate brought to you by beer.

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Wednesday October 03, 2012 · 3:12 PM PDT

2012/10/03 · 15:12

Tonight when you see the presidential debate, there will be a picture worth 10,000 words: THE MOST SUCESSFUL PRODUCT PLACEMENT by LOGO ever conceived in naitonal politics and the Presidential debates.. The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private corporation and the two co-chairs are both ex-party functionaries and are both corporate lobbyists in their day jobs.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Thursday November 06, 2008 · 12:16 PM PST

2008/11/06 · 12:16

Yesterday I wrote a diary on the subject of my wish list for "to-do" items that would go into President Obama's "in-tray," that is, those things which a president can get accomplished merely by signing his name and not needing the cooperation of Congress to pass the legislation or confirm the appointment.

Apparently the concept of "what can President Obama do with the stroke of his pen?" is not as interesting to others as it is to me, because there was very little joining in with that discussion.

Now here is a website that may appeal to more people because it is not so policy wonky as I am.

At Whitehouse2.org you can add your own priorities to the collective consciousness without becoming too bogged down in specifics.

Poll

7 votes Show Results

Do you like Whitehouse2.com?

7 votes Vote Now!

Do you like Whitehouse2.com?

Yes (e.g. it's fun).

5 votes

No (e.g., it's presumptious)

1 vote

I don't know.

0 votes

What is Whitehouse2, com

1 vote

A President Obama Wish List

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Wednesday November 05, 2008 · 5:38 PM PST

2008/11/05 · 17:38

(I haven't seen a diary for this yet. If there is let me know.)
The BBC has a story titled "Inside the presidential in-tray" that made me think of what I would put in President Obama's in-tray as my wish list of things that President Obama could do in the first few weeks of his presidency to make the hope of change be real and actual.

What I'm talking about are executive orders and presidential letters and decisions that do not require legislation or congressional confirmation. These are not legislative packages, and I'm not talking about cabinet appointments (which I assume is a discussion going on elsewhere), but about the kinds of things that President Obama can do on his own by presidential fiat or initiative.

I'm talking about what very practical actions President Obama can take and not just statements of philosophical or political postions. The idea is that these are very direct things to do or say that the President could hand to a staff person and say, "Write it up in the proper language and I'll sign it."

What's on your wish list?

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Saturday November 01, 2008 · 10:49 PM PDT

2008/11/01 · 22:49

WWTRS? What would T.R. say?

John McCain claims Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt as one of his personal heros. For anyone who actually knows the life and legacy of T.R. it is painfully clear that McCain doesn't know what he is talking about and that his feigned admiration for T.R. is just another of McCain's unending stack of lies. Wouldn't it be interesting if McCain actually took the time to read and follow T.R.'s words?

We've seen how McCain's campaign has become one long character attack. Here's what T.R. said about character attacks.

Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price.
Speech, "THE MAN WITH THE MUCK RAKE" April 15, 1906

The words of President Roosevelt himself give the lie to McCain's claim of admiration for the legendary Rough Rider. While T.R. used his military experience to forge a deep sensibility for peace and justice, McCain has only bulit a career of pettiness and poison with his military background.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Saturday October 25, 2008 · 12:16 PM PDT

2008/10/25 · 12:16

This is a short diary to announce the discovery of a new word: "palinscope."

This word was discovered while reviewing the recent history of the Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. When Ms. Palin was thrust upon the national stage by her nomination by Republican presidential candidae John McCain as his running mate, she was clothed not only in the most expensive Neiman-Marcus fashion lines, but she was wrapped in the most exquisitely tailored story lines as well.

This has led to a plethora of investigative reporters looking back into the facts and history behind the stylized wardrobe of labels such as "hockey mom," "small town mayor", and "fighter against the big oil companies" and the reports of their discoveries.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Friday October 10, 2008 · 9:19 PM PDT

2008/10/10 · 21:19

Barry, Barry Obama, this is the voice of your conscience brother. What's got into you?

Sitting in California I watched a TV ad for Obama in which voters are told that Obama's tax plan will give them "three times as much" more than McCain's tax plan. This is the worst and basest kind of politicing possible.

There is one other tactic that appeals to the worst in people that Obama has embraced fully as well. That is, Obama said unambiguously in the last debagte that he will try "to kill" Osama Bin Ladin, no questions asked.

Obama is simply appealing to the mob's worst instincts.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Friday October 03, 2008 · 10:35 PM PDT

2008/10/03 · 22:35

People who grow up in the USA knowing only the bizarrely bland events called debates that are orchestrated by the corporte plutocrats called "the main stream media" can only have a vague sense that surely there must be a better way to do it.

Indeed there is. It is called having a "debate" everywhere else in the world.

People who have been on high school or college debate teams are the small minority of Americans who know that there is a long tradition of debating that ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and FOX totally ignore in their propagandized sanitations that they call debates.

I imagine what a real debate would be like below the fold.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Thursday October 02, 2008 · 6:46 PM PDT

2008/10/02 · 18:46

We hear a lot about Wall Street and Main Street these days but the politicians and the main stream media are doing their absolute best to ignore the Back Street as usual.

Every single Democrat and Republican who is supporting the Wall Street welfare plan is nothing but a hypocrite!

Republicans voting for the $700 Billion gift to the rich, whose platform is to oppose the "welfare" state, are completely hypocritical because they support the welfare-for-the-rich state. Hating the very word "socialism," the Republicans eagerly engage in privatizing their profits while socializing their risk.

Democrats who are voting for the boondoggle are hypocritical because, while they may support welfare (as I do), they are not giving the welfare to the people who need it and instead are giving it to the rich who don't. While claiming to be for working people the Democrats are working against the interests of working people and those on the back streets.

This scenario is as old as our nation and is the direct echo of the first Congress' consideration of the first funding bills in the new Congress of 1790.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Monday September 22, 2008 · 1:11 PM PDT

2008/09/22 · 13:11

Can people please explain why diaries on dead soldiers are treated as Holy Cows on Daliy Kos?

These diaries claim in the most maudlin tones to be in support of the troops who have died, yet they do not mention a single criticism of the Bush doctrine that murdered the soldiers. That is not support for the troops; it is support for the lie about the war. If looked at objectively these diaries are from people who meet the definition of a troll because they are essentially pro-war diaries because they support the "my country right or wrong" and "love it or leave" attitudes. Yet it is those who dare to criticise this jingoism who are labeled the trolls.

And when I or others try to point out their hypocrisy on the troops -- that their wishes that the dead troops "rest in peace" because "they died for us" only hides the fact that the soldiers did not fight for peace nor did they die for us but for the corporate profiteers -- we are banned and our comments are removed.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Sunday August 31, 2008 · 2:13 PM PDT

2008/08/31 · 14:13

In the best tradition of propaganda sloganeering, the Democrats labeled each day of their recent convention with a titled slogan intended to tell the party faithful what the sermon was to be about. The final day of the convention culminating in Barack Obama’s acceptance speech was titled with the religiously tinted slogan, "Change You Can Believe In." Let the buyer beware. As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in January 1849, "The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing" ("plus çça change, plus c'est la mêê me chose," commonly rendered as "the more things change, the more they stay the same"). With a triumph of staging, Barack Obama is selling the elixir of change in the political market places as well as preaching it from the political pulpits, still one must ask in all honesty and daring to speak truth to the power of Democratic propaganda: Where is the "change" when it is more of the same thing?

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Wednesday August 27, 2008 · 7:57 AM PDT

2008/08/27 · 07:57

So far the best speech at the convention by far was by Dennis Kucinich. It will be very hard for Obama to top "Wake Up America!"

Considering that Kucinich was given only 5 minutes and not the 20 minute keynote slot that he deserved, I'd go so far as to say it was the best 5 minute political speech in my lifetime of 58 years.

The Obama campaign made a big mistake putting Kucinich in the sub-prime time slot. So far Obama is running a "safe" campaign just like Kerry in 2004, and so far the polls show that Obama may get the very same result.

Here's the YouTube video of Dennis' speech.

Gregory Wonderwheel

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Wednesday July 02, 2008 · 8:24 AM PDT

2008/07/02 · 08:24

Subtitle: Where are real investigative reporters when we need them?

If you saw or heard headlines like MSNBC's

Navy releases McCain's military record
Unadorned paragraphs bestow some of nation's top military honors

reporting the story by JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer, you might believe that the Navy has released McCain's military records.

If you do, you would be wrong. The main stream media propaganda being what it is you would be understandably wrong but still wrong.

According to Kuhnhenn,

The Navy recently released McCain's military record most of it citations for medals during his Navy career after a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press.

If you look at the link to the records that were released you will see that Kuhnhenn was misrepresenting the facts by calling this small collection of only 19 pages McCain's "military record".

Poll

95 votes Show Results

Should McCain authorize the release of any and all military records with his name in them?

95 votes Vote Now!

Should McCain authorize the release of any and all military records with his name in them?

Yes

82 votes

2 votes

I don't care one way or the other.

11 votes

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Tonight the phony debate brought to you by beer.

Express your priorities

A President Obama Wish List

What McCain's Hero Really Stood For

A new word is discovered: palinscope

Obama appealing to basest instincts

Imagining what a real debate might be like.

Back Street Gets the Shaft While Wall Street Gets Welfare & Main Street Gets Conned

Why are Diaries on Dead Soldiers treated as Holy Cows?

Is Afghanistan the Sign That the Democratic Party Is Self-Destructively Chasing Moby Dick?

Wake Up America! Best speech at the convention.

When Are We Going to See McCain's Actual Military Record?